Details

I’m already excited to attend the SCBWI-RMC’s fall conference. If you don’t know, SCBWI-RMC stands for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators-Rocky Mountain Chapter. Their conference is called Letters and Lines and it’s coming up on September 18th and 19th in Denver. Registration just opened and I’ve already enrolled. Now comes the hard part. I need to send in the first ten pages of my manuscript as part of a Critique/Agent Pitch application. I’m a nervous wreck. There are so many details: no stapling, name on cover page, no name on the manuscript pages, etc. etc. If you overlook any of these procedures your application will be eliminated. Talk about putting on the pressure.

So many rules makes me nervous. I wonder if this is how it feels to be in the military. I’m a wreck, because I’ve messed up with this kind of thing before. Last year, when I attended an SCBWI conference in Seattle I accidentally folded my manuscript. Apparently one of their rules was “no folding.” They were really nice about it and said they would make an exception and allow me to have a critique by a local published author anyway. I learned a lot from the critique so I really want to make sure I get everything right this time. I’m not sure if I’ll be lucky enough to get a reprieve twice in a row.

My fingers are crossed and I’m hoping I get everything right this time.

Excellence is in the details. Give attention to the details and excellence will come. Perry Paxton

An Easy Beginning for Critique Group

I often complain about the difficulties in getting the opening pages of my novel just right. I’m about to re-work it again for the hundredth time. Luckily, the beginning of the critique group six children’s writers are forming in Denver had an easy start. We met on Sunday, strategized, and set up the following tentative guidelines.

~Open enrollment in the beginning. When the group gets to an ideal size we’ll start a waiting list.

~Monthly meetings every third Sunday at 1 p.m. The first gathering will be in the Colorado Mills area, possibly Border Books or at a nearby library if one is open on Sunday afternoon.

~Each person will email their manuscript to the other members a week in advance. If it’s a picture book they can send the entire work, if it’s a novel they’ll send about 10 pages. (I will be sending the new beginning I’m about to write. I can’t wait to get some direction.)

~Members can bring to the meeting copies of the other writers’ work they received by email and their hand written or “tracking and change” comments.

~A timer will be used. Each person will have 25 minutes devoted to their work. They will read it aloud for about 10 minutes and then there will be approximately 15 minutes for discussion.

~We will re-evaluate and improve this process as we go along.

The only thing left to do is think of a name. Maybe we’ll have time to discuss that at our next meeting.

“The beginning is the most important part of the work.” Plato

Transitioning into Summer

My high school daughter is off school and my son is home from college. The whole family is working on a landscape project in our yard. These are exciting changes in my typically routine life, but they have distracted me from writing. I didn’t work on my query letter last week. I remember my cousin-in-law Randy Boyagoda telling me he gets up at four o’clock in the morning to write. I decided to try this tactic today.

I got up at five-thirty, (four just wasn’t happening.) My house is quiet and there are no interruptions. Well, the dog did rouse and give me a funny look--he’s a habitual guy and he’s used to me walking him at 7 a.m. Somehow he knew it was too early to get the leash and rolled over and went back to sleep leaving me with an hour and a half of precious writing time all to myself. This just may work.

Oh yeah, I do have some other news. In spite of my time management problems, I did progress in two areas this past week. One, while I was outside raking wood chips I came up with an idea for re-working the first few pages of my novel. I’ve been wanting to improve it and now I’ve got a plan. Two, I made arrangements to start a critique group with some other writers. Our first meeting is on Sunday.

If you want to make good use of your time, you've got to know what's most important and then give it all you've got. Lee Iacocca